Electrical Power Sector and Lightning Protection

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Lightning protection performs an important and imperative function in the energy and electrical power sectors helping companies avoid downtime and restoration cost that come with outages.


Each year a multitude of electric power facilities are knocked off line due to lightning. These lightning strikes have a primary effect such as fire and also secondary effect, such as transient surges and over voltage.


This occurrence degrades/reduces what is called mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) and it can be extremely costly to electric power providing companies as well as their customers.


An electrical power company need lightning protection because:

- Large surface areas, metal structures that attract lightning

-  Located in isolated areas

-  High rates of lightning strikes

-  Damage to highly sensitive equipments


Therefore it is important for these entities to have lightning protection, and to create a thorough and comprehensive solution which combines lightning protection, with grounding engineering, as well as appropriate surge solutions. Sometimes, lightning protection can be an essential condition for insurance companies to cover the cost of an incident or may reduce the cost of the policy.


Several companies have found that traditional lightning protection tends to create more issues than solutions and have opted to implement a solution based on charge transfer technology. Whether it is a nuclear power facility such as Browns Ferry or substations, much like those operated at EPB, or a cooperative, such as Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the usual protection, like lightning rods and overhead grounding/shield wires, do not do the job. They need assurances and have found that a customized approach, tailored to meet their unique set of circumstances, is more preferable than the standard approach.


Lightning Eliminators has provided critical solutions for numerous electric power facilities over the past 40 plus years.


A great way to start is by taking our free Risk Analysis survey which may include our smart ground audit service.

Smart Ground is a relatively new technology and service offering by LEC. The technology employs state-of-the-art grounding system design and modelling software (WinIGS) and an advanced ground system multi-meter to deliver ground test and analysis capabilities far beyond that of the standard test meter and methodology.


For additional information regarding protection for electric power facility protection please contact us. 


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